My New GPX 6000 Is Faulty, Straight Out Of The Box

[Sheppo]

I still feel you need to send it in for repairs/replacement. I never touch the noise cancel button that often in a session, though I do live on the quick track button.
 

That noise you hear when down near the coil is actually the output of the machine/coil and the frequency it pulses at. I picked it up the first time I used it with headphones and then heard it again while watching a prospecting TV show recently (The Weekend Prospector if anyone’s interested, also not expecting to hear it through the TV). I also picked the GPZ’s frequency up when I started wearing headphones/earbuds aswell, though not as loud. That did take me off guard before I worked out what it was. I haven’t heard the ‘hiss’ that you speak of though. 

[Lost Scout]

Phrunt, I've been following the thread. You don't know me and I know less than you about detectors. But I'm giving free advice about your situation based on my life experiences and past mistakes. SEND IT BACK FOR A REPLACEMENT. You will never trust the machine at this point. Give Minelab the chance to make it right. Give yourself peace of mind. As I read the thread I feel sorry for you, the money put out and hope you don't cheat yourself.

If I was Minelab and read this thread I would have your replacement ready to go and be contacting you for your shipping address.

Consider this situation with the big picture in mind. Happy hunting!

[Guest]

Yep never herd a "hiss" in the headphones, the buzz/noise in the headphones when near the coil is normal.

[phrunt]

I spoke to JW about the noise cancel thing, he seemed to think it was pretty normal based upon his 6000, he also has to do the reset thing occasionally during the day, all very similar so I guess that's the environment we live in, we are often never far from civilization or the power network.  In fact he was just doing the reset process when his 11" coil died as he was trying to fix up the Geosense EMI.

The performance seemed right to me on the day and JW seemed to think so too, if I was using the GPZ with 8" coil I think the two would have been very competitive with each other on the targets I was finding and the depths they were at which falls in line with JasonG saying the two are very competitive with each other.  I was quite happy with the performance overall, I would like if I could disable Geosense though, probably not how it works but I'd love to just hold down a button to turn it off once I've got the detector stable, I don't need it doing a billion calculations per second about my soil, there is nothing for it to do as its very mild so it seems more trouble than its worth with the EMI issues, some manual control would have been nice, even a manual noise cancel adjustment would have been good.

They're on the right track I think, the GPX 6500 will likely be a fantastic detector once the technology is improved upon.  I probably would have put the speaker in the control pod though, not the tail end, might have helped with the speaker generated interference too having it further from the electronics.

There are plenty of positives too, it has great small target sensitivity, it's so stupidly light and it sure is great not wearing any sort of harness.  The EMI/Geosense thing really takes the ease of use away from it though, the GPZ seems more of an easy expert detector than the GPX as for a beginner the GPZ would be easier to use and easier to understand with less of the EMI to confuse the new detectorist.

I don't want to take the other detector off my dealers stock with him replacing it if it now works, he's happy to take this one back today as hes going back to Christchurch 7 hours away tomorrow morning and then ship me the other one he has in stock on Tuesday, dealers are only small businesses and it's a high value item, and he'd then have shipping costs etc to deal with, it's not his fault at all.   I have 3 years to get it back to the service agent if it develops the problem again.  It's only my secondary detector, if it was my primary detector I'd be more worried.

I will enjoy learning it, and I will learn to live with Geosense and eventually after time learn to take advantage of it for it's intended purposes.  I do like it, I just like the GPZ better at this stage.  I will give the DD a try, JW has said it has no EMI issues at all, and he's finding very small gold with it, it doesn't seem to dumb the detectors performance down much.  I may find I enjoy using it more with the DD, and after all that's what it's all about, if you don't enjoy it then it becomes work.

Sheppo, I'm the exact opposite, I never needed to touch the quick trak button ?  We do have EMI problems here due to the large power network from the hydro lakes so that could go some way to explaining my EMI problems, The GPZ doesn't care about it at all and I often go the entire day never once using it's noise cancel, not even when I first arrive at the spot, but my older 4500 struggled a bit here too with EMI, it's why I dabbled with the QED, the GPZ ended up the best solution.   I'll try record the headphone hiss and put up a video if it comes out in the recording.  It's sort of high pitched and I believe people lose high pitched hearing as they age but you should be able to hear it I would think.

[phrunt]

On 5/6/2022 at 8:20 PM, Aureous said:

When I pick up mine on Monday, the 6000 will owe me 40 grams. I'd better like it....

Coming from a 4500 I think you'll love it.  Massive sensitivity jump to small gold.

[Jonathan Porter]

Simon are you saying you’re going to be complaining about your faulty 6000 for the duration of your warranty?  ? ?The detector has a fault we could all see that, you should get it back to Minelab and at the very least have it looked at if you genuinely want to have faith in your detector and also avoid damaging others faith in them. 

[phrunt]

6 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Simon are you saying you’re going to be complaining about your faulty 6000 for the duration of your warranty?  ? ?The detector has a fault we could all see that, you should get it back to Minelab and at the very least have it looked at if you genuinely want to have faith in your detector and also avoid damaging others faith in them. 

Thanks JP, I have to call my dealer today so I'll see what he says once he's back from his helicopter mission.  Maybe I should get it swapped as I have video of the error on the screen to show him and Minelab, but now it's a dirty used detector so then if Minelab can't fault it what can they do with it? It's not like they could box it up and resell it.  It's too expensive of a product to get scrapped for parts, I guess I've got too much sympathy for Minelab and the dealer worried about what they'd do with it especially now it seems to be working fine?

[Jonathan Porter]

Just now, phrunt said:

Thanks JP, I have to call my dealer today so I'll see what he says once he's back from his helicopter mission.  Maybe I should get it swapped as I have video of the error on the screen to show him and Minelab, but now it's a dirty used detector so then if Minelab can't fault it what can they do with it? It's not like they could box it up and resell it.  It's too expensive of a product to get scrapped for parts, I guess I'm got too much sympathy for Minelab and the dealer worried about what they'd do with it especially now it seems to be working fine?

That’s for them to worry about, the key thing here is you are making public comment about a detector that obviously has/had an issue, in fairness to them and piece of mind for yourself that should be addressed first and foremost. 

[phrunt]

I think it's best I'll tell my dealer I'll send it to the service center to be looked at rather than him replace it out of his stock.  They might just fit a new PCB to it which really will cost them next to nothing, the labour cost to the service center and shipping will likely cost them more than the PCB costs.  I'd rather they look at it and repair it if necessary than have it swapped over, that's more fair on him and on Minelab.  I know my consumer rights say I'm entitled to a replacement and he's willing to replace it, but I don't think it's justified in this case when it started working and by comparison to JW's it seems on par except I've got the better shaft. ?

The headphones may need replaced too although I don't intend to use them anyway as I was going to buy that Torus over shoulder speaker so I don't really care about them.